many thanks for the feedback. each to their own. i thought this one was funny as a plea in mitigation anyway

we've had a good pitch from John Rentoul; my usual foe Tory Bear tweets that he is "lmao at the last two paragraphs of this", which I understand denotes humour. had some good comments from LabourList piece on it too.

So we'll keep running it, as long as Mr Hilton and others keep up enough nonsense.

Tory sources have been briefing the press that this is coming from the Tory right; and they have not suggested the Labour theory as a possibility.

It doesn't necessarily prove they are right. It is clear that many/some of the attacks on Hilton are coming from the Tory party - eg the leaking of the strategy memos has to be from Tory MPs or staffers, and the aggressive anonymous anti-Hilton briefing from Tory backbench and even at least one frontbench voice, which has been widely quoted.

So we know there has been a sustained anti-Hilton campaign from his own ranks, even if you think Labour has somehow thrown in this one element to it. The balance of probability seems to me against that, but I don't know.

Broadly speaking, while a critic of Hiltonian contradictions and meaninglessness, I would have some sympathy with him over those anonymous attacks.